


Panem et Circenses

by lizfu



Series: Unfinished Fic [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!John, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizfu/pseuds/lizfu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That Sherlock/Hunger Games crossover where John is a mentor and Sherlock is a consulting Gamemaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panem et Circenses

**Author's Note:**

> Prologue: In which it's the first Quarter Quell and John Watson convinces everybody to send him to the Games.
> 
> *
> 
> Completely un-beta'd or Britpicked (though any British slang and colloquialisms were researched before being used); obsessively combed over in a tedious, daily revision process; early drafts posted on tumblr. Creative liberties taken where information was nonexistent (see endnotes). Some details are taken from what's shown in the Hunger Games film, when it doesn't contradict book canon - so, really, the Hunger Games part of this crossover is an amalgamation of the books and the film. Panem's geography taken from [this lovely fan-made map of Panem](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/32461.html), which was crafted with care and thought to geography, natural disasters, districts' productions in relation to amount of land needed, and borders.
> 
> Thanks to [hockpock](http://hockpock.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and [tuesday](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday), who unwittingly became my first readers and cheerleaders. The "ZOMGAMAZING!" comments helped boost my morale and keep me writing when I would have toddled off to do something pointless.

The television special had been the height of Capitol pomp and decorum. A young boy, adorned in Capitol finery, bore a simple wooden box down the middle aisle of a large auditorium, lined with the wealthiest, the most beautiful, the famous – privileged guests at tonight’s ceremony. The boy’s gait was steady, in time with a swelling, proud rendition of Panem’s anthem, played by with every bit of enthusiasm and reverence by a symphony. The cameras switched back and forth between the boy’s procession and the faces of the guests, tears streaming down their cheeks as they held their hands over their hearts, proud to be citizens of the Capitol. At home, in District 8, sixteen-year old John Watson watched with a mixture of disgust and apprehension. It was the announcement of the first ever Quarter Quell in the Hunger Games. Nobody knew what to expect – not even those in the Capitol.

“Get on with it!” his sister, Harry, yelled at the screen.

The boy finally reached the stage, climbing each step as the music slowed climatically, ending in a grand finale as he stopped by the podium where the President stood – tall and regal yet grandfatherly with his patient smile – and presented him the box. A terrible silence fell over the audience and through the Watsons’ flat. The President opened the box. A close up from the camera revealed that it was lined with unadorned white envelopes - enough, by John’s count, to account for centuries’ worth of Games. The President drew the first envelope, numbered with a simple 25. As he broke the wax seal and removed a card from inside, John leaned forward on the edge of his seat, his heart beating double time in his chest as he waited for whatever fate the Capitol had prepared for them twenty-five years ago.

“On this, the twenty-fifth anniversary,” began the President, his voice deep and resonant, echoing in the hallowed silence of the auditorium, “as a reminder to the rebels that their children are dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district will hold an election and vote on the tributes who will represent it.”

John’s stomach twisted and a wave of nausea pushed him back in his seat. His hand was on his face, covering his mouth as he uttered a curse beneath his breath. Harry had a more positive outlook. “You’re safe this year, Johnny!” she had cried, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug. “There’s no way anyone would vote for you!” 

Hours after, he lay on his bed, tracing the cracks of his ceiling from their origins to their nexuses, turning over the message of the Quarter Quell in his mind. Each district would knowingly condemn their tributes. They would choose among their children who they would rather see die. Harry was right, of course; no one would vote for him. He was too well liked, too valuable to send. Old Bart, the healer, would be retiring in a few years, and John as his only apprentice would take up his practice, treating illness and injury. District 8 – like many others, no doubt - would likely vote to send a pair of orphans from the community home. That idea unsettled him more than the Quarter Quell itself. It was unfair – they had no parents, no one to speak for them – and at the same time a wasted opportunity. The district could vote for a willing tribute and it would mean more – a lot more. Before drifting off into a dreamless sleep, he decided that they would send him. 

The next morning he caught the dissent, barely contained in grumbled whispers. A small group of adults had gathered outside a factory, huddled against the early morning chill, looking nervously over their shoulders for any Peacekeepers who might get the right impression of what they were doing. They seemed to relax and slide back in to conversation when they saw John and a few other children on their way to school. John stopped, making a show of tying his laces as he cocked his head to the side to catch what they were saying. It was unfair, monstrous, asking the districts to choose a boy and a girl to send to their deaths. Depraved, degrading, evil! “The districts shouldn’t stand for this!” one man growled a little too loudly, taken away by the heat of the moment. “They think we’re all rebels, so I say we give ‘em a rebellion!”

Tugging down the hem of his trousers over his laces, John stood with every intention of leaving, but something kept him there – a prickling sensation in the back of his mind that if he was going to do something, now was the moment. He rounded on them. A few of the adults froze, fear thick in their stares like children caught nicking bread. Others eyed him with wary suspicion, their glares daring him to say something. John licked his dry lips and opened his mouth. The words tumbled out before any regrets could hold his tongue.

“Vote for me.”

Silence hung between them, filled by the daily din of District 8 – the murmur of voices peppered with rough laughter of workers passing by, the rumbling of the factory as it belched foul smoke, a distant school bell chiming out the quarter hour warning. It would have been serene if John’s heart hadn’t been flopping wildly in his chest as the adults gawked at him. His head remained high and he didn’t look away.

“Vote for me,” he said again, a bit more helpfully. The adults’ faces remained slack-jawed in disbelief. John let go a long held in sigh and set down his school bag. “Look,” he began, “it’s a hard choice. It’s unfair to ask a community to choose from their children who they would rather see die, so I’m volunteering. Makes the decision easier when you have someone who’s willing to go, wouldn’t you say?”

The man, who had been speaking before John had interrupted, opened his mouth and closed it comically a few times. “But-” he managed before the teenager cut him off with a raised hand.

“No. Vote for me. Send me. The Games aren’t just about fighting; they’re about survival too. I apprentice at Bart’s, so I know about injuries and medicine and what I need to do to keep from dying from more…natural causes.” He grimaced at this. In the arena, it would be the least of his worries. “I can survive.”

A round of uneasy glances was traded among the adults, each face cloudy with uncertainty. The idea was there, though, taking root just as it had with John. It would spread before the end of the day, catching like fire in a factory. Eventually Harry would hear of it too, but John didn’t want to think what her reaction would be.

He swooped down, catching his bag and throwing it over his shoulder. “John Watson for tribute,” he said with a wry grin, before walking off. “Think about it.”

And he knew they would.

*

“What the hell are you thinking?!” Harry screamed later that week. It was the first thing she said when she came home from her shift at the factory, slamming the door so hard it rattled in its frame. She stomped through their small flat, her footsteps thunder on the wooden floors (the tenants below them knocked on their ceiling), no doubt searching him out. 

John had settled at the cheap excuse for a table in what poorly doubled as a living room and kitchen, reading over notes he had taken for school and those he had taken after school, when he had gone straight to his apprenticeship. He looked up as she came in, his stomach dropping. Red-faced, long blonde hair wind swept, she looked like a fright. Her chest heaved as she drew in long, struggled breathes, and John could see a sheen of sweat on her brow and arms; she must have ran all the way here. Her lips pressed into a hard bloodless line when she laid eyes on him in a pointed glare. He could only assume that she had heard about his volunteering.

“I was thinking why the hell not,” he replied, flashing a winning smile despite his own anxiety. He returned to a page on common injuries in the factories and their treatments. Old Bart expected him to have this memorized in two days time. 

The piercing howl from Harry told him that she didn’t share his humour. His notes whipped off the table with a violent swipe of her arms told him that she wanted to talk about it. A chill froze the blood in his veins as he hesitated in the moment, afraid to look at his sister. He stared dumbly at the table where Harry’s hands were planted in tightly clenched fists, skin stretched and whitening around the knobby knuckles, tendons, and thick blue veins. Anticipation churned sickeningly in his stomach as he waited for movement, for those fists to pummel the table or the wall or fly at him. 

Harry’s anger was deep-seated but quick to rise at the right provocation. It had to be after their parents’ deaths. With no time to mourn, she set to work ensuring that she and her little brother wouldn’t be sent to the community home with other orphans; she was only twelve. All his life, John watched her haggle for longer shifts at the factory, working so long into the night that she could barely stay awake in school the next day. What meager wages couldn’t provide, tessarae had; by the time she turned eighteen, her name was entered into the reaping ball thirty-one times. Every Reaping Day had ended with a sigh of relief from John when her name wasn’t drawn. 

When it came time for John to be entered into the reaping ball, she was an adult, old enough to work full-time to support them. “Never sign up for tesserae,” she had told him. “I don’t want your name in there more than it needs to be.” Resentment laced her anger now; she had done everything she could to raise him, to keep him safe. Knowingly, he had thrown it all away.

John licked his lips, mind racing to find the right words to quell his sister. A sob broke the tension, and John looked up as Harry sank down in the chair across from him. Her face was a mess, fat tears streaming down her red cheeks. She blubbered a barely intelligible “Why?” Something tugged in John’s chest and – cautiously – he reached out, fingers brushing her forearm, and squeezed.

“Harry,” he said carefully, “what I’m doing – it’s the right thing. This is the only opportunity where the districts can vote who we’re going to send. The decision is in our hands. Nobody in their right mind would vote to send someone else’s child; it’s too much to ask. If I influence the vote, we can send a message that we’re not going to play victim to their sick Games.”

Harry had gone very still, her expression unreadable. Silence hung between them in bated breaths as John waited for her to say something, his heart pounding in his chest and his mouth suddenly dry. She was gutted – John could see the same hollowness in her stare that had been there the night their parents had died in the factory fire – but he knew her. She would accept his decision; she would understand why it needed to be him and not some orphan that nobody cared for. The adults in the square had seemed to accept it and embrace it – just as John knew they would – and they had spread the message around. By sacrificing himself, he was giving them all a way out. 

She pursed her lips. John swallowed hard, reaching for self-control to keep from leaning forward. “You’re full of shit,” she said. Her eyes sparked with that same anger that had flung his notes from the table, but her voice was level. “You’re full of shit, John Hamish Watson, and you’re going to die in that arena.”

His stomach fell with disappointment as his head remained high and his eyes unflinching on hers. “I’m still going.”

*

“This is about Bill, isn’t it?” Harry asked a few hours later.

A pang ripped through John’s chest. Resolutely, he kept his eyes on his notes, trying to reread what he had written about medicinal properties of certain plants that Old Bart’s wife grew in a small garden behind their clinic. “No,” he replied evenly. “Volunteering for the Games would be an insult to his memory.”

And it was true. Though, as he sat at the table, notes spread out around the plate of measly food that consisted of his dinner, he could barely maintain the rumbling of an old rage threatening to explode his carefully constructed composure. Closing his eyes and measuring his breaths, he counted slowly to ten but the memory played behind his eyes: a boy skewered by a crudely constructed javelin, eyes wide and staring at the camera as if asking, “Why?” 

When he opened them again, his vision was bleary with hot tears, but he was alone at the table. He could hear the groan of the shower as it ran elsewhere in the flat. Using the solitude the moment provided, John allowed himself to cry.

*

Eleven-year old Sherlock Holmes watched the pre-Games coverage with a fleeting interest that bordered most often on boredom. During the week leading up to the Games, the packed streets of the Capitol overflowed with banal festivities and the airwaves were bombarded with programmes that rarely revealed anything new or useful. It started each year with the Reapings, staggered to build drama and tension. Each district was a sea of young faces, ranging from stoic to resentful, complacent to enthusiastic – all with an undercurrent of fear as they stood cordoned off from their families, completely alone in their anxiety even in the crowd. Once the names had been drawn, a hypocritical relief washed over those who managed to avoid being reaped another year, as they made an effort to remain solemn and apologetic to the boy and girl who had been chosen. Following the Reaping, the tributes were herded to the Capitol and paraded in front of the cameras for entertainment. _Panem et circenses._ The irony of their existence did not escape Sherlock – decked out in the finest fashions, celebrated and treated as celebrities, only to be brutally slaughtered while all of Panem watched – but he couldn’t bring himself to care for these children older than him by a handful of years or derive enjoyment from the crude ways they found to kill one another. Some wanted to be there and reveled in the bloodbath; others resented it completely yet didn’t make the effort to survive. It was a tedious affair year after year.

This year’s Games had promise, though, to at least be interesting: the 25th Hunger Games and the first of the Quarter Quells. The responsibility for Reaping had been placed on each district, voting who they would send. It was downright devious, and Sherlock had vibrated with anticipation as he watched the Reapings, hoping for results outside of the standard blank stares and resigned postures. He expected a breakdown in the community dynamics of the districts as its adults struggled with the moral weight of choosing their tributes. He wanted to see a spark of rebellion that justified the Games’ existence – riots, protests, blank ballots, _anything_. 

After watching the live coverage of the first five districts, though, Sherlock settled back into his usual disinterest. It had been so utterly mundane that he could have predicted it if he hadn’t been so wrapped up in the hype himself. Most districts found a way to avoid the moral dilemma by sending orphans who had no one to speak for their interests – a win-win situation where the Capitol got their tributes and the district community homes had two less stomachs to worry over. Hardly controversial. The affluent districts – whose tributes normally won the Games – had actually made an effort in voting for those that had a chance at winning. This year would be a short bloodbath with the majority of the tributes dying within a day; it would please the Capitol audience and assure the districts that they had chosen the right children – not their own. Instant gratification and absolution from guilt. Sherlock had yawned before wandering out of the room. _Boring_.

This Games’ coverage provided no further distraction from Sherlock’s boredom. He kept the television on because Mummy enjoyed watching and Father felt he needed to remain informed, as though the Games itself had any immediate importance to his political fortunes. Mycroft was away, acting as escort to one district or another – Sherlock could really care less. Tonight his parents had left to attend a function to rub elbows with citizens more influential than them, leaving the younger Holmes to entertain himself for the evening. He could have turned the telly off and focused on the samples of dirt he had collected during his wanderings around the Capitol the last few weeks, but the silence of the house filled him with an acute and unnecessary sense of unease. He needed the inane chatter of hosts and specialists to distract him from going into one of his fugues – ironic to say the least.

It was the night before the Games proper. Each channel was filled with tribute analysis or live broadcast of the pre-Games interviews. He settled on the interviews, because the analyses were as banal as the Tribute Parade had been, revealing nothing but the careful image each tribute cultivated. Arguably, the interviews were much the same, but as he half-listened, half-fiddled with the microscope, there was something satisfying about hearing the lies and seeing the trivial everyday gestures that gave away each tribute’s facade rather than the regurgitations of the announcers who actually believed them; he could pick apart the lies from misinformation with ease. Each tribute chatted briefly with the interviewer, sharing their assessments of their abilities (“Wrong!” Sherlock shouted more often than not), their aspirations should they win the Games (“Unlikely.”), or more trivial details of their lives before their Reaping (“Get on with it!”). He tuned them out quickly after they ceased to be interesting, engrossed in his work until the next blathering idiot interrupted. He managed to ignore tributes from districts 5 through 7 and the girl from District 8, only briefly looking up to note how many more interviews there would be before the programme ended. The boy from District 8 gave Sherlock pause.

He was ordinary – painfully ordinary even after his stylist had dressed him in a tailored three-piece suit. They might as well have dressed him in a hideous jumper and slacks for all that the suit did to set him apart from the others. Shorter than most of the other male tributes close to his age with a mop of bland ash blonde hair, he looked less like a tribute and more like a boy heading off to a dance, nervously fingering his cuffs (left-handed) and bouncing his leg. Once the interviewer started talking to him, he seemed to forget his nervousness and answered back with a bit of wit and humour. They bantered back and forth, earning chuckles from the audience, but Sherlock didn’t pay what he said any mind. His accent caught the eleven-year old’s attention: it was different from the normal District 8 patois, which was very similar to the accent that ranged broadly throughout districts 9 and 10, save for the vowel shift inspired by District 7. He clipped words and pronounced vowels like someone from the Capitol, though his accent was softened by the phonological influence of his district. Most curious. Sherlock only started paying attention to the words coming from his mouth when he started talking about healing.

The boy – whose name was as ordinary and forgettable as his appearance – had apprenticed with one of his district’s healers. He knew anatomy, medical treatment, the healing properties of certain plants. All most useful, ensuring that had he not been Reaped, he would have been a valuable member to the District 8 community. Sherlock cocked his head to the side in thought, narrowing his eyes. Useful, personable, invaluable, intelligent but not so much that it would intimidate more common people. Why was he here, during the only Games where the districts chose who to send? 

Healing - he spoke of it as his greatest asset, where the other tributes had noted their physical prowess, proficiency in weapons, and even their ability to hide. He praised his fellow tributes, of course, making sure not to belittle their capabilities. When faced with the inevitability of death, the boy from District 8 maintained manners and good sportsmanship that Mummy would have appreciated had she been watching. Mummy, like many, consoled herself with the belief that the Games were a casual sporting event; the deaths still happened, but her mentality transformed each killing from the vulgar to the necessary. Slaughter was like scoring points.

“What if there are no medical supplies in the arena?” the interviewer asked. Sherlock scoffed softly. It was a stupid question; of course there would be medical supplies, even if only as gifts from a sponsor – _if_ the boy had sponsors. At the most, the boy would find an interesting – perhaps even perverse – way to use them to kill.

“I’ll make my own,” he replied, and Sherlock believed him. His tone held the neutral competence of a well-studied student.

Next question: “Do you expect to win with your medical knowledge alone? Surely you have other skills!”

The boy fell silent for a thoughtful moment before shaking his head. Sherlock’s eye brow pricked up. “I intend to survive.”

Sherlock watched as the interview wound down and concluded, the interviewer wishing the boy the best of luck and – as if to remind the audience who they had met – introduced him again. The boy’s name flew past him once more, completely insignificant as Sherlock studied his face. The open congeniality persisted long enough for the boy to flash the crowd another smile and a friendly wave; it dropped into something heavier as he walked offstage. He caught it when the boy turned but it was so brief that he couldn’t identify what it was.

Sherlock settled back. His soil samples forgotten, he spent the next hour in contemplative silence, steepled fingers pressed against his chin, examining everything the boy from District 8 had said and cataloguing his every movement. He came no closer to understanding any of it. Why was he there? 

The interviews concluded and the programme rolled into another analysis on each tribute, which was every bit as useless and simplistic as all the other programmes had been this past week. Sherlock switched off the screen with an exasperated scoff, and stalked out of the living room to begin his own research on District 8’s rather intriguing tribute.

*

John tossed restlessly on his bed, his mind racing and his body too excited to find comfort. As he threw on a dressing gown and a pair of slippers, he wondered if any other tributes were as nervous as him, unable to sleep. He wandered through the floor reserved entirely for District 8, in and out of rooms that were empty this time of night, save for the Avoxes who stood in eternally condemned silence, waiting for John to order them. As he passed, he smiled and acknowledged them with a nod, feeling a spark of satisfaction and rebellion having done so. His escort – a prim man who dressed the most conservatively of any Capitol citizen that John had seen since his arrival (yet carried a ridiculous umbrella at all times, even indoors) - had scolded him the first day he had done it. “An Avox is here to take your orders, not to be chatted up!”

He found himself in the common room at last. It was cool and dark, but he didn’t bother to turn on the lights or fiddle with the environmental controls. He settled onto the large settee, folding his legs under him. Earlier in the evening, he and his team had watched a recap of the interviews, followed by an analysis programme examining everything from every word each tribute said to what they wore. John watched in wry amusement as an analyst and a chipper set of hosts ooh’d and awed and tried to make sense of even the most trivial fact. Of course none of it would tell anybody whether a tribute would win, but the programme treated it otherwise with the same audacious authority of the pre-Games judging (which had given John a score of 5). Over the course of fifteen interviews, they had narrowed down their picks for victor to the pair from District 1, a boy in 2, and a girl in 4 – Career districts, all of them. When they came to his interview, the constant chatter between the hosts and the analyst stopped momentarily in a hesitant pause. “Well, he doesn’t appear to be much,” the analyst had said diplomatically, “but perhaps he’ll surprise us.”

John sat in the darkness, contemplating turning on the large screen fixed to the wall. Broadcast coverage of the Games seemed to last all hours of the day in the Capitol, though by this time, John imagined they didn’t have anything new or informative to present a late night audience that hadn’t been shown already. Besides, the night before the start of the Games, John didn’t feel like doing much of any watching; it seemed in poor taste. His last night outside the arena - and quite possibly alive - should have been more auspicious, more wisely spent. There was no way of getting a message to Harry to tell her that he appreciated all she had done for him and loved her. He wanted desperately to reassure her that he would do his best, and in the foreseeable event of his death, he wanted her to live a life of her own, not cling to his memory. She was young; she could have a new family. She could be happy.

He spent the night on the settee as silent and as still as an Avox, staring into the darkness and recounting all the things he had done in his life that he had been proud of and all the things he hadn’t; overall it was a good life filled with minimal regret. Eventually, sleep found him, weighing his eyelids and body until he tipped over onto the comfy cushions, eyes closed. He sprawled as much as his small body would allow. They found him like that in the morning – though he couldn’t remember for the life of him having requested the blanket thrown over him.

*

“It’s rare for you to take an interest in a tribute, much less the Games,” Mycroft noted, a hint of smugness in his voice that made Sherlock’s stomach twist with loath. He took delight, however, in the yawn Mycroft tried to stifle over the phone.

It was still night, hours since the interviews and hours before the start of the Games. Mummy and Father were still out, no doubt feasting and drinking and vomiting as citizens of their station were wont to do, and the servants had retired long ago. Sherlock’s own sleep patterns had become more and more erratic over the last few years, but nobody seemed worried, accepting it as a manifestation of his queer personality and brilliant intellect. He had been at the computer all this time, researching the District 8 boy – _John Watson_ , he finally committed to memory – but finding nothing of value, save what he had already deduced.

“I figure now’s a good time as any,” he replied dismissively. It was a poor excuse, not up to the usual scathing wit he had taken to answering his older brother with as of late. He needed information, though, and Mycroft had an abundance, if not the means for obtaining it. 

“Much less a tribute from the district I represent,” Mycroft added with more smugness.

“Entirely coincidental,” Sherlock retorted. “This…John Watson is a fascinating choice. What are his survival odds?”

“According to the boards, _slim_ , with bets placing him as dead by the second night.” Sherlock scoffed at this - a fatal mistake. “But you’ve taken an interest in him, so I can only assume you’re seeing something nobody else has.”

Sherlock ignored the comment – baiting. “Is he proficient with any weaponry or survival skill?”

Mycroft yawned again. Sherlock couldn’t decide if it was real or a show of boredom for his line of questioning. “No doubt you saw his interview – or else how would you have heard of him? In the media’s eyes, he’s far from interesting or charismatic – he’s ordinary. Not worth the coverage. His stylist has tried to play him up as the charming boy-next-door type. He has shown some proficiency with a bow after two day’s training, but – much to his mentors' annoyance – he is pertinacious that his medical knowledge is all he really needs to survive.”

Sherlock frowned. “But not win.”

“I doubt it’s his expectation to come out of the Games alive.”

More and more curious. Uncomfortably he shifted in his chair, his brow furrowing with thought as his mind reinterpreted data in corroboration with what Mycroft had just told him. On the screen in front of him, John Watson stared back, his face comical as it tried to feign a serious, determined glare, the expression much too adult for his youth. What was Sherlock missing? “What do you mean?” he demanded as last, when his own ruminations frustratingly yielded nothing.

“John Watson won the vote in his district by a large, unprecedented majority, with only a handful of votes for other boys. This occurrence was only found expectantly in the hardier districts – 1, 2, and 4 – whose tributes typically win.” Mycroft sounded bored, as though he were quoting common knowledge. Another scowl settled over Sherlock’s face. He was eleven years old; it was hardly expected that he should have the vast connections within the government that his brother enjoyed. Mycroft was showing off. “Tributes from other districts were either orphans or those fortunate enough to have enough votes cast in their favour, all winning by small margins.”

Sherlock fell silent, phone cradled against his shoulder as he ran the facts and his observations again. John Watson: sixteen years old, small for his age, utterly ordinary in appearance, left-handed, dialect influenced by Capitol to some capacity. Superficial details – Sherlock dismissed them. John Watson: intelligent yet not intimidating, highly competent student of healing and medicine, invaluable asset to his community. All the more reason to keep him, not vote for him with an overwhelming majority. Sherlock grimaced and leaned back in his chair, tipping the front legs off the ground. The truth was in there, lurking somewhere in the details, but he just wasn’t seeing it. He gritted his teeth and fast forwarded through John’s interview to the very end. John Watson: smiling for the audience, waving politely, well-mannered and sweet, then turning – the smile dropping from his face, his brow heavy, jaw set, and eyes no longer alight –

Sherlock jolted from meditation, his chair legs slamming back onto the ground. A small “Oh!” broke the silence. “He rigged the vote.”

On the other side, Mycroft yawned again. “Very good.” His voice was thicker, tired. “Of course he rigged the vote. There’s no other reason for a boy like him to be here this year.”

Another frown stretched Sherlock’s face. “He wants to die?” he asked.

“No, Sherlock.” Mycroft sounded bored once more. Tomorrow would be a big day for him, and Sherlock was keeping him awake. _Let him be tired_ , Sherlock thought with delighted maliciousness. “I don’t suppose he cares much about living, either.”

“Then why is he here? Why rig the election?” Sherlock growled in frustration. He knew the facts, but he still wasn’t able to connect the details in any explanation that made sense.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Good night, brother.” The line died in Sherlock’s ear, tone droning. He glowered at the receiver and placed it back in its cradle. Mycroft had only been marginally helpful. He had no other choice but to watch the Games.

*

The morning of the Games was a rush of activity. John had been hustled off the couch by his stylist, a simple cotton shirt and trousers thrown at him. “We’re going to be late!” she moaned. John squinted at the light pouring through the blinds; it was barely the start of the morning, the sun hanging low on the horizon. Shrugging, John ducked into his room, closing the door on his howling stylist and taking his time stripping from his pyjamas. He grinned at the stylist’s complaints on the other side. Let the Capitol wait. They would have their Games.

Once he was out of the room, his stylist grabbed his arm, pulling him through the hallway. She yammered the whole way to the elevator about nothing important to John but significant to her. He made an effort to smile pleasantly and nod as if he understood any of it. His final preparations would be done on-site, consisting nothing more than him putting on whatever clothes they gave him for the arena. Those varied from year to year, but none of them were elaborate enough to require the aid of a stylist. He could dress himself.

As they made their way to the launch pad, where a hovercraft waited to take them to the arena, John looked around for his fellow tribute – a girl, a few years younger than him, and orphaned. Mary was her name. No other teens from his district had stepped up to volunteer as he had; she had the misfortune of having enough votes cast against her. She hadn’t spoken much over the week, opting to keep to herself even during Training. From afar, John saw how good she had been at camouflage and she seemed pretty effective with a knife, impressing the judges enough to give her a score of 7. Any attempts at conversation were shrugged off; John found himself staring more at her back retreating from him than her downturned face. Her interview had been the most words he had heard her speak, graceful and timid but hollow. She knew she was going to die. John could only hope it would be fairly early.

On the roof, a man approached them. He wore the white uniform of a Capitol medic and carried a syringe whose needle was both comically large and dangerously sharp. John hesitated as the medic asked for his arm, complying only after his stylist rolled her eyes and gestured for him to get on with it. The needle was as sharp as it looked, stinging as it broke skin. He hissed with pain, pulling back as soon as the medic released him from his grip. 

“That’s your tracker,” he told John, amusement seeping into his voice. “Normally tributes are more squeamish. You’re one of the few I’ve had today that I didn’t have to restrain.”

The medic walked away before John could say anything crass. The hovercraft awaited on the other side of the roof, suspended above them. Once again, his stylist pulled him along – thankfully not by his sore arm. A ladder dropped down. “Up you go!” she told him with an impatient flurry of her hands. 

John was a boy going to his death, taking the rungs slowly. He looked down, a wave of dizziness causing his head to spin and his vision to momentarily double. _I could fling myself from this height_. At best, he would break his neck; at worst only an arm. Would they postpone the Games, or allow him into the arena injured? If he died now, he would never have to go in. He then remembered Bill – running through the arena as fast as his legs could carry him javelin suddenly erupting from his chest, a stunned expression on his face as he took in what had just happened before the blood bubbled from his lips and he collapsed to the ground dying. Weeks ago, John had told Harry that volunteering for the Games would be an insult to his friend’s memory. Dying without ever really trying would be much worse. Throwing himself from a ladder – it wasn’t how he would want to go. Choking down the sob that threatened to burst from his lungs, John continued climbing. The Games had been his choice; he would stand by it. 

The hovercraft took them to the arena, windows tinting the closer they came. John didn’t understand the necessity for secrecy. Once tributes were in the arena, they were there to stay until all but one died. Who cared who knew the location? Conversation died down during the flight, his stylist’s eyes misting over whenever she looked at him. One week and he made that much of an impression? He thought he had been giving her a difficult time; he expected cold resentment towards him. John smiled reassuringly and tipped his head in thanks. She pursed her lips, sniffling, and looked quickly away out the darkening windows.

Once the hovercraft landed, they were whisked away once more, the stylist guiding him through the catacombs to their final destination: the Launch Room. John had overheard the tributes from District 10 refer to it as the Stockyard, and the name caught on, whispered with dread whenever tributes gathered to train. John scoffed softly as the door of his Launch Room opened, revealing a very plain room, sparse with new furniture and a very basic layout: a main area with a table and chairs and a circular platform against the wall; and a bathroom where John could shower and dress. Nothing suggested imminent doom or inevitable gruesome death. His basic needs were met here. Anything else would be provided – or denied - in the arena. 

Breakfast first then shower. The table was covered with an assortment of breakfast foods – from plain cereal to thick peppered steak topped with onions. Anxiety fluttered in John’s stomach, driving away any appetite, but he piled his plate high with hearty food that would keep up his energy. He forced each bite down, washing it down with gulps of juice. The food tasted the same to him – bland and plastic – but it was filling. Once he finished, he made himself another plate. Who knew when his next meal would be in the arena? 

It wasn’t long until start time: _ten o’clock_ , his stylist had mentioned during her early morning tirade. Once more, he was hustled along, his stylist dictating to him what would happen in these last thirty minutes. Her voice was surprisingly level; after the hovercraft ride, John had feared she would break down into tears at some point. She seemed especially excited to find out what he would be wearing in the arena. In the shower, he washed up quickly, then spent an extra five minutes under the showerhead, his mind blank as his skin pruned. This was really happening.

His stylist was gone once he emerged from the shower clean and dry, along with the remaining food, but in its place was a bundle of clothes neatly folded. He looked around the room, confused. Where could she have gone? She hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving. A sudden panic gripped him, his limbs trembling. Last moments alive and the Capitol would force him to live them alone? The stylist had been an annoyance, but she was a small comfort. Even with her incessant chatter, she had known what was going the happen. It had been a solace to be dragged along. Left to his own devices, John knew not what to expect.

A clock on the wall chimed sharply, breaking through his thoughts. Fifteen minutes. He forced himself to breath, deeply and slowly, swallowing his panic in measured gulps of air as he reasoned with himself until he was in a more manageable state – shaken but functional. The stylist probably stepped out for hair product or whatever else she could have forgotten in her rush this morning; she’d return any moment. John snatched up the bundle and headed back to the bathroom. 

The outfit was simple enough to assemble: trousers made of lightweight material that breathed; matching shirt that clung to his body; thick boots that laced up mid-calf, much like those worn by Peacekeepers. The sleeves and legs were detachable, making it easy for John to rip them off without having to risk stopping long to strip. The jacket that came with the bundle was a thick material with extra padding around the shoulders, elbow, and chest. John experimentally pressed the padding; it was sturdy under his hands but flexible, bending with the jacket. His stylist would undoubtedly be all too happy to tell him what it was when she returned.

Once he was dressed, he studied himself in a large mirror on the door, frowning deeply at his reflection. He was scrawny – thin arms, undefined chest, a soft belly starting to bulge from nine days of regular hearty meals. The Careers hadn’t paid him any mind during Training, but in the arena, he would be an easy kill. He collapsed against the wall, sinking to the floor as he curled around himself, breathing heavy and quick. His face flushed, only burning hotter when fat tears rolled down his cheeks. Harry’s words came painfully back to him: "You’re going to die in that arena."

John had no tokens, nothing to take with him in the arena. Harry had offered their father’s pocket watch, but he shook his head and pressed it back in her hand. “Keep it,” he had whispered. “You might have a son of your own one day to give it to.” Now he wished he had accepted it. It would have given him something to hold, something to give him courage now when he needed it most. Then he had remembered Mary, whose role in this year’s Reaping had come down to poor luck; no one spoke to her, no one offered her any tokens. She would die alone without comfort. Guilt flooded him, and furiously, he scrubbed at his cheeks. Deep breaths calmed him, steadied his nerves. Leaning his head against the wall, he closed his eyes, taking a moment to collect his racing thoughts. He needed a plan; even if he didn’t win, he was going to survive as long as possible.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he found he wasn’t alone. His escort stood by the door, leaning casually on his ridiculous umbrella and examining his watch with impatience. “Less than five minutes to go,” the escort announced. He had been introduced, but like the stylist, John didn’t see a point in thinking of him as a name – just a role. Their acquaintance had been fleeting and would be concluded as soon as John entered the arena.

“Come to see me off then?” John asked a tad testily. He didn’t particularly like the escort. The man had treated him and Mary as burdens from the start of things, tutting at every miniscule mistake and scolding breaches of etiquette as though they were crimes against the Capitol. It was obvious from the way he had sneered with disdain at their mentor and harped at the prep team and stylists that he had not been thrilled by his assignment as District 8’s escort. Perhaps next year, he would be assigned a choice district, though John wished with all his heart that this man would end up in District 12.

“Apparently,” the escort replied with boredom. He snapped his pocket watch closed, tucking it away. “Do you have a tactic for once you’re inside?”

John raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah. The Cornucopia’s typically a blood bath, so I’m going to run in the opposite direction and find cover.”

The escort made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. “Of course,” he murmured.

John’s brow knitted together and his jaw set. “Is that all?” he asked.

The man waved a hand dismissively. “I just wanted to… _chat_ -” he made a face as he said the word “- as they say.”

John bared his teeth in a vicious mockery of a smile, and he tried very hard not to laugh. “I’m here to die, not to be chatted up.” Unfair and a cheap blow on his part. He wasn’t making allies, but, then, he felt that he didn’t need one in the escort.

The escort looked surprised, his eyes brows shooting up his high forehead, but then tutted softly. “Temper, John. You don’t want to enter the arena so uncollected.”

The pleasant voice of a woman came on over an intercom, announcing one minute. The escort nodded to the platform. “They’ll raise you up to the arena, where you’ll have to wait sixty seconds to start. Don’t step from the platform too early, or you might be in for a nasty shock.”

“I know,” he shot back. Everybody knew about the mines planted around the platforms. Once every few Games, a tribute would step off too early in their own terrible excitement and wind up a smear of charred flesh and blood on rubble.

An odd silence hung in the air, where neither he nor the escort made to move. John figured the talk was over and turned to be on his way. The sooner he was in the arena, the sooner he could be done with this.

“Why are you here, John?” the escort asked behind him.

The woman’s voice announced thirty seconds remaining. He hadn’t cared about the time earlier, but now anticipation was building in his stomach and the escort was the last person he wanted to be having his final heart to heart with. He turned on the balls of his feet, grinning humourlessly at the man. “My district voted for me.”

The escort stepped forward, umbrella tapping along with his footfalls, an unnecessary cane (John never got to ask him why he carried it). He stopped a foot from John, eyes hard. John's mouth dried and his heart raced, but he met the escort’s stare. 

"20 seconds," the voice reminded them.

"A smart boy like you has a promising future,” the escort began slowly. “Any other district would have opted to send an orphan instead. You would have had two more years with your name in the ball, but given the poverty of your district, I’m sure there are others with their names entered a multitude of times, just from accepting tesserae alone. You would have been done with all of this, John, in two years, yet you chose to run towards the danger." The escort tilted his head to the side, as if considering John for the first time, looking right through him.

"10 seconds."

John didn't deign to answer him. He whirled around, quickly crossing the remainder of the Launch Room, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. What could the escort even possibly know about him? 

"Think about why you're here," the escort’s voice called after him. "Whatever the answer is, pray you find it in the arena before it’s too late."

As John stepped onto the circular platform, a glass shaft slid down around him. He craned his neck, watching as is it enveloped the platform, his heart picking up pace. The escort remained in the middle of the Launch Room, leaning on his umbrella - the last person in the remainder of his short life that he ever wanted to see. It should have been his mentors or his stylist or even his prep team, not the escort with his posh suits and ridiculous umbrella. 

"May the odds be ever in your favor," the escort said just before the shaft cut off all noise from the Launch Room and the platform began to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the prologue! This is my first serious endeavor in multi-chapter fanfiction in many years, so I hope it's enjoyable. I thought I'd take a moment to explain a few creative liberties that may seem odd.
> 
> On dialects: A thousand pardons. Many assumptions were made, especially with the development of certain accents within districts. The Capitol accent is more inspired by what's described in the book, which I imagine as sounding very much like British English, though I could be so very wrong. For the purpose of this fic, it works.
> 
> Setting: I'm really interested in Panem's past, but there isn't much information to go on, based on what Katniss knows (and reveals). Setting this fic between 25 and 40 years after the Dark Days allowed me more freedom to speculate and more room to reinterpret the characters from _Sherlock_ in this setting. I read obsessively between the lines, asked myself "Why" on one Games' policy or another, and drew my own conclusions, which are most likely incorrect. That's the fun of crossovers, though: there's give and take on both sides in order to make the entire work a good read.
> 
> Broadcasts & Programs: Another assumption on my part. In the books, there's only really coverage of pre-Games events. I imagine the limited programs are something of a political nature. This being Panem's past and Snow not being president, I went with a more liberal attitude towards media.
> 
> Lastly: It's not rigging the vote if you talk people into voting for you. The Holmes brothers just imagine the most devious scenario.
> 
> (I promise in the future these notes sections will not be so long)


End file.
